Whilst the invention has been devised with containers in mind which are of the type which comprise a pallet or base to which there is mounted four interlocked sides the invention is not limited to such containers.
When containers are to be emptied the methods adopted depend to a large extent on the contents of the container. In the case of flowable material, such as granules, gravitational discharge is the preferred method. To facilitate this method of emptying a container attempts have been made to develop containers which have bottom discharge means. For a number of reasons containers with a bottom discharge incorporated in the base or pallet forming part of the container have not found favour with users.
An alternative is to tilt the container, usually in a tilting device on which the container is mounted, to the extent required to cause the contents to flow from the container over a top edge of one of the container sides. To provide a generally uniform rate of discharge, which is the normal requirement, the tilt of the container has to be continually adjusted. This discharge method is labour and/or time intensive and is therefore not favoured.
Another discharge method is to mount a hood with a discharge opening, and usually fitted with a flow controlling device, to the open top of the container and then support the container in an inverted condition to allow material within the container to gravity discharge through the discharge opening of the hood. The challenge with this method is how to invert the container/hood assembly, hereinafter termed `a container`, in the most efficient and economical manner. The present invention addresses this challenge.